Walk to School Meeting this Thursday – are you Going?

The Walk to School portion has been rescheduled due to lack of participation.

Crozet Community Advisory Council Meeting – Walking & Biking to School meeting to try to get community buy-in. This is the sort of meeting that the community needs to, if it truly believes in connectivity and walking/biking to school, get behind. If the buy-in/interest isn’t expressed, we will have the continued status quo – as in – nothing happening.

“Please join us at the Crozet Community Advisory Council (CCAC) meeting (Thursday, April 21st at 7:00PM). The meeting will be dedicated to the topic of walking and biking to the local schools. Representation from each of the schools and PTOs will make this a much more lively and effective discussion. Thank you for making time in your busy schedules to discuss this important topic.

Location: The Meadows Community Center, 5800 Meadows Drive (off of 240) in Crozet”

Update: There is a meeting after all.

Once again, my apologies for the off-and-on again regarding this month’s CCAC meeting. We are postponing the “Walk-to-Schools” discussion until our May 19 meeting, but Mike and I decided we had enough agenda items left to have a shorter CCAC meeting.

The CCAC is meeting tomorrow, Thursday, at 7:30 PM (instead of 7PM) at the Meadows Community Center (our usual place).

Agenda:

CROZET COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL
The Meadows, Crozet
Thursday, April 21, 2011
7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

People have the choice now to ride or walk anywhere. They have always had it. They seem to choose not to. This whole
community meeting concept is flawed. Instead of people having to go to a meeting it could very easily be brought to them. The technology exists and is cheap. That way you would greatly expand participation if, you actually wanted to. If you
want to promote change you need to change the way you promote it. Inclusive community is possible.

No, one cannot have a public meeting on a blog. Nor could you have it over Skype, maybe if the meeting included only 4 people. You could live stream it or post it to YouTube after the fact. However, real video conferencing equipment is quite expensive and isn’t efficient for large groups of people in multiple locations.

Podcast, Simulcast, Rss Feeds, etc. Anything to increase the
audience. If that is the goal. Even the School Board does Town Hall meetings over the phone. These are some of the more inclusive ways to get more people involved. If you are interested in
this you should look it up.

my daughter will some day go to crozet elementary and i would want her to have the freedom to walk or ride a bike. roads in va. are not made for bikes unless someone or some organization fights for that precious space. i also think that there could be some “buddy” system for kids to travel together. just like handicap parking bike lanes are not a safe alternative until stiffer fines and more enforcement are implemented. is skateboarding to school allowed?

See the unelected board is trying to change a rule that the elected officials have condoned. The members of the community would like for their children to be able to walk, bike, skip, hop, skate, rollerblade, unicycle, or walk on their hands to school. The community has gone to the community association to try to build community consensus which would lead to the changing of the rules and provide the infrastructure so that one can accomplish their goals.

There is no rule that stops children from walking to school. Just because you repeat it, it does not make it so. If you want to believe there is one what is the penalty if a child does this? Expulsion? Parents go to jail? $7,000,000.00 fine? The unelected board wants
infrastructure without having to pay for it. Any excuse is better than none. It’s called politcs. The people who run Western Albemarle schools are not elected.

I have heard of students getting punished by the school for walking to school (in Crozet). I have also had several parents tell me that the school has told them that the kids are not allowed to walk to school. As far as, “The unelected board wants infrastructure without having to pay for it”, I am not sure which group of people this refers to. I do know that those who support walking and biking to school in this community and are interested in providing the proper infrastructure are not trying to get it for free.
If you have strong feelings about the issue of children walking and biking (skateboarding or pogo-sticking)to the local schools, please come to the meeting on May 19th at The Meadows. We want to hear from all sides.

How were they punished? Students have been walking to school in Crozet forever and I simply do not believe this. Until the law against this with the penalty is found it is simply a case of someone wanting their way. I suspect if you really just dealt with the issue and looked into it you will find that certain school employees prefer that children do not walk to school. Unelected boards are just that. If you want to express yourself[email protected] is your true source.
They are the only elected board that runs the county. They will respond to you. Why get upset because they check a student’s BAC? I would get more upset if they told me where my kids could walk to. In America you have freedom of movement in public places. Whether you walk to school, the store, or, just to
walk it is really nobody’s business. To say
that there is nowhere to walk or ride bikes is not correct. It is not hard to see
people walking, running, riding bikes now. To destroy the natural beauty of this area to urbanize it is simply wrong.
To use walking to school to further this
agenda is wrong.

To destroy the natural beauty of this area to urbanize it is simply wrong…yet you support the gas station and are against housing developments? Can you have one but not the other?

Jim, I propose inviting Edward to write a post. It would be nice to know what his philosophy is, what his vision for the area is, etc. It might take more than one posting really. But as far as I can tell his ideas/philosophy are conflicting, other than his dislike for unelected commissions. I’d love some clarification in a nice long post, not just the short and often confusing posts.

I love the idea, I just don’t think the infrastructure is in place for many Brownsville kids. Old Trail families could probably make it work, but for our other neighborhoods, and our Batesville students, don’t have a safe way to bike or walk to school.

One goal of the meeting (now scheduled for May 19th, no exceptions) is to discuss the desired infrastructure. We want to establish a partnership between the schools, the community members, and the County planners wherein we all work towrds the goal of a safe pedestrain and bicycle system for Crozet and the surrounding areas. This may not be an overnight accomplishment, but it is necessary to to start the process now. The meeting sponsored by the CCAC will not be the only opportunity for discussion, but we hope it will open the door to constructive dialogue and creative problem solving.

I remember hearing that the reason kids aren’t allowed to walk to school is because of liability. Once they leave their house/parent’s supervision and go to school it is the school’s responsibility to watch after them. Is that at all the case?